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Rosenfeld Review PodcastAuthor: The Rosenfeld Review Podcast (Rosenfeld Media)
Lou Rosenfeld talks with a LOT of brilliant, interesting changemakers in the UX world and beyond. Subscribe to the Rosenfeld Media podcast for a bird's eye view into what shifts UX faces, and how individuals and teams can respond in ways that drive success. Language: en Genres: Technology Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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AI, Discovery, and the New Product Manager with Julia Barham
Episode 5
Thursday, 28 May, 2026
Product management is changing fast — and according to Julia Barham, many PMs are being pushed to the “left,” beyond delivery work into deeper discovery, customer insight, and strategic thinking. Julia joins Lou to discuss her forthcoming book, The Product Management Playbook: Create, Ship, and Optimize Winning Products, and why modern product managers need broader, end-to-end skills to thrive. Julia explains how AI and automation are reducing the amount of manual coordination and backlog management product managers traditionally handled — creating both anxiety and opportunity. As delivery work becomes easier, PMs are increasingly expected to spend more time understanding customers, validating ideas, collaborating across disciplines, and driving outcomes instead of simply shipping features. She also argues that great product managers succeed not because they know everything, but because they cultivate curiosity, build strong partnerships, and continuously learn across business, design, data, technology, and customer domains. The conversation also explores why many product managers feel disempowered inside organizations, the growing overlap between product and UX research, and how self-education, mentorship, and optimism can help professionals adapt during an uncertain AI-driven transition. What You'll Learn from this Episode: Why product management roles are shifting toward discovery work How AI is changing delivery and project-management tasks The five core domains strong product managers understand Why curiosity is a product manager’s “X factor” How PMs can better partner with UX, engineering, and data teams Why many product managers feel disempowered today How self-education and mentorship accelerate PM growth What end-to-end product management really looks like Quick Reference Guide: 0:18 – Meet Julia and learn why she wrote her new book 2:43 - Product managers shifting into customer rese–arch roles 5:29 - The dynamics of research shifting into the product space 8:44 - Other major messages of Julia’s book 11:55 - The common thread: curiosity 13:24 - Designing with AI virtual conference 14:10 - The insecurity of having breadth of knowledge but not depth 17:09 - The importance of self-education 19:02 - The ubiquitous attitude of “nobody listens to me or respects my position” and what to do about it 23:46 - Julia’s gift for listeners Resources and Links from Today's Episode: The Product Management Playbook: Create, Ship, and Optimize Winning Products by Julia Barham https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/product-management-playbook/ Dr. Marily Nika’s courses on Maven https://maven.com/marily-nika Dr. Marily Nika on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/marilynika Hilary Gridley’s Couch-to-5K for AI https://couchto5k.ai/ Quotes: “Successful product managers usually operate across five different domains.” “It’s not a book on theory; it’s a book on doing.” “You need to be a really good partner if you want to be a great product manager.” “The point is harnessing multiple superpowers to get that integrated thinking and develop a solution that’s going to work across what customers need, businesses need, and then can be scalable and sustainable.” “You have to be curious. You have to spend time with your partners, get mentors, and learn to understand how design, data, technology all help you make a better product for customers and for your business.”
